Today, buyers have more alternatives than ever before in the same market landscape. Due to the high number of providers, consumers are getting flooded with an increased number of products and creative agencies running outstanding marketing messages every day. With the current rate at which the market is growing, it is hard to survive and succeed for startups as well as well-established businesses.
Regardless of your business niche, whether you are having digital products, apparel, diagnosing medical problems, providing web designing services, or selling paintings, you need to stand out from the competitors. To be a successful brand, you need to stand at least one step ahead of the competitors. And, it starts with a strong and unique brand identity.
If you think you can achieve a strong brand identity overnight, you are mistaken. Extremely talented and experienced branding agencies express, your brand identity is more than a correct spread of colors in the logo. The logo is one of the digital elements that help you to create a brand identity and communicate your brand to the customers. To create a unique brand identity, you need to focus on all the elements including all forms of communication and business strategy that combine and reflect you as a brand. Numerous globally well-known brands like Snapchat, a business entirely focused on fun and in-moment experiences have achieved incredible responses for their unique brand identity.
Let’s help you understand how you can achieve a unique brand identity.
What is Brand Identity?
Brand identity is how the audience sees you. It is the voice and visual representation of your brand’s mission, vision, and values to the world. Assume a brand is more like a human. When you meet a person, you develop an image of them. The further you interact, the impression deepens.
Following the first impression and personal analysis, you will interact further with the person. Brand identity is much similar to this. Brand identity can include elements like:
- Name
- Logo
- Color schema
- Typography
- Website Layout
- Product illustration
- Packaging
Let’s get to know the best 5 ways to create a unique brand identity in 2023
Focus and find your audience
The success of a business depends on the understanding of the targeted audience. Applying the best brand strategies, onboarding the best web designing companies, and investing your time, money, and knowledge is not going to build your business if you don’t know who you have to reach. Your targeted audience is the ones who need your product. You need as many details as possible about your targeted audience to create a unique brand identity. This is what will lead to resonating and sustaining the identity.
You can create a brand voice based on who your audience is.
The following questions can help you to understand your targeted audience:
- What age group needs your product?
- What is their occupation & gender?
- Which channels are they highly active on?
- Why do you need your product and when do you buy it?
- What’s their budget?
- What are their interests, motives, and pain points?
These are the most common questions that can help you to define your targeted audience. Further, questions do vary as per business industry.
Research competitors in your business industry
Although, you might have heard it multiple times, and would have now become a cliche for you, auditing your competitors can do marvels for your business.
This is a growing market and every day, there come some new tactics to attract the customer. Regardless of how rigorously you try, you can not stay updated on every strategy. Competitor analysis regularly keeps you updated on the latest as well as rewarding branding strategies. The audit reports can help you recognize the top competitors and what stuff they do and in what different ways to be at the top of the market.
Wearing a yellow color in a crowd of millions with black does make you unique and eye-catching. It becomes easy to notice the yellow color and also, it would be the first to catch a gaze. Similarly, competitor analysis gives an idea of what everyone is doing and hence, how you can do something different from them or the same thing in a more attractive manner.
Find your USP, a thing that makes you distinguishable, that speaks about your brand, that only you can offer and no other brand. Resonate this USP to your customers and get their undivided attention and interest to invest in your brand preferably than any other.
Consistent visual expression
“A picture is worth a thousand words” – A phrase that does complete justice when it comes to building a unique brand identity.
It plays an important role in presenting your brand as unique from others. The most basic thing that a brand requires is a face and voice, and these can easily be created visually. Your visual identity can be the logo, color palette, typography, and so on.
Creating face and voice includes the following design elements:
- Design the right logo
- Select a good color palette
- Select your brand visual elements
- Typography
Brand presence
Design is the silent ambassador of yours. To build your brand’s presence, you need strong and unique marketing materials to share with the world. These materials should communicate on your behalf about your story, values, mission, and vision.
These include materials like the following that promote your brand and build an audience:
- Website
- Email Designs and Marketing
- Packaging
- Business Cards
- Social media
The design of your marketing materials will determine how your brand is perceived by the audience. So, be selective and precise about what you display.
Authenticity is the key
To outrun the competition and be unique, authenticity is the key. Being unreal and artificial doesn’t work in the long term. To be true to your customers and provide as promised, you first need to be true to yourself. You need to identify what your brand is and what it stands for.
Especially for new entrepreneurs, it can be hard to get inside the court with big and well-known players. In such a case, creating brand trust is the shot. Brand trust can only be created if customers find you authentic, and that is only possible if you are authentic.
A fine example of this can be a Tagline. Create a tagline that describes your product’s unique quality and set it different from other products.
Let’s start building your unique brand identity
The importance of a unique brand identity for the growth of a business is evident as you learned. You can reap tremendous results for a long time by understanding and implementing these methods. Whether you are starting a fresh brand or have an established one, these tricks can help you polish your unique brand identity. Your business revolves around your customers, that is one thing you must always remember. Getting in touch with the targeted audience leads to the acquisition of customers. Make sure you are clear about who your target audience is and design your brand accordingly. Every element of the brand should feel interconnected to them.
Author Bio: Brijesh Jakharia
Brijesh Jakharia co-founded SPINX Digital in 2005 and takes great pride in crafting web and mobile marketing solutions for mid-market businesses to enterprises. Marketing is his passion, and the thrill to build a brand from the ground up has helped him craft successful brand stories for world-class clients. While not at work, he loves to spend his time on research and reading digital content stories.